Confessions of a Weddingaholic

So I'm pretty serious about this Joe guy I'm dating. He lets me lick his neck before work...how could I not be serious about him?

We're not engaged, but we talk about it for our future. I only stick around in relationships if I can look at a guy and go, "Yeah, I think I'd like to sit awkwardly in a restaurant with you for a couple decades."

I'm not engaged, but I have a confession to make: I'm a wedding planner.

Not in a horrible JLo movie way, but in the "I already know what kind of dress I want" way. Weird, right? It surprises me, too, considering my long-standing opposition with pink and frills. But when Michelle and I were little, we'd pore over two kinds of magazines: American Girl Doll and wedding. We'd plan our dream wedding with Anonymous Handsome Husband, discussing everything from the clothes to the hair to the clothes to the clothes. (We didn't really know what all went into a wedding, to be honest. But people got dressed up and we were into it.)

I decided I would wear an off-the-shoulder dress a-la Princess Jasmine, I would hold red roses, my bridesmaids would wear red dresses, and the groomsmen would wear red bow ties and red cummerbunds.

YEAH. What can I say? It was 1994, I was nine, and I had a bowl cut. Style was not really in my direct line of vision.

But the point is, I've basically been thinking about wedding details since I knew what weddings were. To me, it's a lot less about wanting to be married and a lot more about planning something pretty. It gives me the same euphoric feeling as a new Crate and Barrel catalog. "Look at THIS decanter! And THIS one! LET'S BUY ALL THE DECANTERS!!!!1"

My best defense for being the Weird Girl Planning Her Fake Wedding is that thinking about those happy little details helps me sleep. I don't know about you, but laying there in the dark is my brain's favorite time to either stress about work, or play out disastrous ways for everyone I love to die. Something about darkness really brings out the worst in my subconscious. And centerpiece planning helps. But now the details are way funkier than red cummerbunds. They look more like this:








I finally confessed all of this to Joe a few days ago. He didn't leave a Joe-shaped hole in our door, so I got a little excited. And I told him one idea I had: no bartenders. Buy booze ourselves and let our friends pour their own drinks like the adults they are. But instead of telling me that I was a freakin' genius, Joe had the AUDACITY to be rational and say that a lot of venues probably don't let you do that. And our friends might be peeved that they'd just come all the way to a wedding just to do all the grunt work. I huffed quietly and then went about my day.

And it stewed.

And finally, after Joe had left town for Detroit, I let it all out in an email.

A) Our friends would NOT be upset that they weren't waited on. They'd be happy they could have as much booze as they'd want and they'd be happy to celebrate with us and if they didn't like it then they could shoveituptheir--BREAAAAATHE, Emily.

B) I told him (because I am a CRAZY PERSON) that when he turned down my idea, he was backing my fake wedding dreams into a corner. And if I'm ever going to fall asleep thinking about flower arrangements, I'm going to need my fake wedding to flow freely.

That night on the phone, he apologized (What a great guy. Apologizing in the face of Crazy.) and said he wanted to hear more ideas. I let another one fly: For the Save The Dates, we take pictures of ourselves wearing Bill Murray masks and have it say "We're getting murray'd!"

Joe told me it was a great idea.

And that was the moment I realized....it really wasn't. It was a HORRIBLE idea. It was weird and creepy and made no sense and was a terrible pun besides. But if Joe had actually told me the truth, I would have sharpened my nails into points and then slashed him across the chest. HOW DARE YOU RUIN MY BILL MURRAY PUN DREAMS!

What I realized is this: Sure. Sometimes we need someone there to give it to us straight. To smack us across the face and tell us we're wrong. But sometimes we just need support. We need someone to be there for us when we make decisions and nod along so we can come to our own conclusions without the blinding rationale-blocker that is the Defense Mechanism. And that relates to partners as well as parents, friends, even work-associates. We all just need someone who knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. When to walk away and when you run. You never count your money when you're sitting at the table. There'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done.

So...comments anyone? Am I the only one pre-planning her dream wedding/who has horrible thoughts before bed/who emails her boyfriend because she's bad at live conversation sometimes/who gets crazy defensive about really bad ideas sometimes? I'd really like to hear your thoughts. I promise not to lash out in email form...well, I'll try.

I Think I'm Alone Now

Oh heyyyyy guys. How've you been? How was your weekend? What have you been up to lately?

Sigh, I'm sorry. I feel like I've been gone/absent for a while and now we've gotten to that point like when you haven't seen a good friend for an awkward amount of time, you know? And you feel weird asking them about their life because they're supposed to be a good friend and you should KNOW if they have a boyfriend/job/car but you don't, but you also feel weird making small talk because they're your good friend and you refuse to discuss the weather. You know.

You do know, right? Please tell me you know. Don't tell me I'm the only one out there who gets that awkward. Although God knows I'm capable of it.

Anyway, I'm avoiding it now. Here's the skinny. The nub. The gist. The low-down. STOP IT, EMILY.

Joe has accepted a 4-month contract job in San Francisco. He'll be gone from the 4th of July to Halloween. I will be alllll alone. I'm moving to a studio on the (extremely) north side. I will be a sad, lonely, destitute old hag, with no one to comfort her during the cold, dark nights but her mustachioed female cat named after an obscure Friends reference.

Thing is, though...I'm actually really excited. But like, REALLY excited.

Not so much excited that Joe is going to be gone. That part makes my insides feel like burning. But I'm excited to have my own place for a little bit. I've never lived alone in my entire life. I've never blasted my music in the middle of a living space for hours. I've never been able to constantly pick my own movies and tv shows without consulting someone else (why HELLO, marathon of old Grey's Anatomy episodes. And how are we this evening? Anyone object to a Miranda Bailey lecture once every 40 minutes? Regina Phalange? Refrigerator? No one? Excellent, let's begin.)

Dishes will be done WHEN I SAY THEY'LL BE DONE. Everything in the fridge is mine, MINE! ALL MINE!! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!! What's this goo on the bathroom sink? Who knows, but I created it and therefore I won't get the Black Lung by scraping it off. THE FREEDOM IS ENDLESS, PEOPLE.

I'm also looking forward to forcing myself to do more alone-time things. I'm going to go to a movie by myself for the first time. I'm going to go out to eat by myself. I'm going to go to movies in the park by myself. Rent roller skates at the beach? Maybe! You never know what kind of kooky adventures I'll find myself in.

It's not that I couldn't have done these things earlier. I just...never did. I guess I never really thought to. Even when I was unemployed and had all the alone time in the world, the whole pesky "lack of paycheck" thing was keeping me from reaching my true adventuresome potential.

So what does this mean to you? Because, let's great real. The world revolves around each and every one of you. Separately. What it means is that you get nonstop complaining for the rest of the month as we pack up our stuff and put it in storage until Joe's gig is done and we know what we're doing next. HOW FUN FOR YOU! Also, you get to hear about the adventures of a single girl who is not really single. Read: no posts about awkward first dates BUT INSTEAD posts about how I broke my pride falling into the lake while roller skating. Yippee!

Lick

This morning:

Emily: Okay, going to work.
Joe: Wait!
Emily: What?
Joe: Kiss my neck sensually for five minutes first.
Emily: WHAT?! I can't. I'll be late.
Joe: Sigh, Okay.
Emily: Fine, I'll do it.
Joe: YESSSSSS.
Emily: *Lick*Lick*Lick*
Joe: What are you doing?!
Emily: I'm licking your neck sensually for five minutes.
Joe: Stop that! It feels weird.
Emily: Shh, turn your head. This is happening.
Joe: GO TO WORK!
Emily: Okay, bye!

Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts

As I see it, my life so far looks like this:



What I'm trying to say is, you get smarter over time. To a degree.
For a while there, I was learning just as much at school as I was at home. I was learning cursive AND not to take candy from strangers. I was learning fractions AND how to say no to drugs (I still have yet to use the Broken Record strategy and I'd really like to, so if one of you guys could repeatedly offer me the marijuana cigarettes so I can turn you down over and over while using eye contact and a firm stance, I would appreciate it. And so would Officer Kveton.) And later I was learning about Pavlov at the same time I was learning that if you twist your ankle and then go out all night, you will not be able to fit socks onto your feet for a week.

And then I graduated. And I'm not exactly sure what happened. How much do I tip a cab driver? It gives me HIVES every time I have to do it. Drunk and it's a crapshoot. He either gets a 20 or nothing. THERE'S NO TIME FOR SUBTRACTION AT 2AM. When do you use a comma in grammar? I still, have no, idea.

But ask me about life situations. Relationships. Friendships. World events. Where are the good restaurants. And I'm your lady. Because that street smarts part just keeps on trucking. And thank God it does. Because, while the only time I use geography is to figure out which way is north, I'll be damned if I can't tell you the fastest public transportation route from Lakeview to Big Star. And yes, using fractions to figure out how many servings were in my tub o' yogurt was haaaarrrrrd. But I could walk through Trader Joe's blindfolded in order to get it.

So I guess it's okay that I'm not so much with the book learnin' any more. Because the longer these old bones age, the more I learn about life.

Speaking of which, do not sit on your ankles your whole life or you'll have the knees of an 80 year-old by the time you're 26.

Also take off your makeup at the end of the day or you'll have to fill your eye wrinkles in with caulk.

The Truth Behind the Tootsie Pop Wrapper Star

I wish that title was actually "Tootsie, the Pop Rapper Star". But alas, I'm speaking of this:



Let me tell you all about a little girl named Emily. This little girl had a dream. And that dream was to discover that she had won a prize.

Rumor had it, back in the Olden Days of Yore, Tootsie Pops used to print the star on different places around the wrapper. If you found one with the star, consider yourself Charlie Bucket, because you just won an amazing prize: whatever the star was next to. That's right. Kids roller skating? You won roller skates. Kids playing baseball? You won a baseball set. Kids swimming in a lake? You win a lake. No matter what, you see a star, you win a prize. Just like God intended it. But sadly, by the 80s when I was ready for my free lake, Tootsie pop had discontinued the prizes and just used one standard wrapper, the star forever next to the bow and arrow (of which I should have won at least fifty by now.)

Turns out, apparently I am the only nut job to have heard/believed this story.

If anything, you all heard the rumor that if you find the star, you get a free Tootsie Pop. And some stores even did it. So it wasn't even a rumor, it was actually a thing that happened. Lucky for me, I had a know-it-all big sister who liked to mess with me for FUNZIES and told me a totally different rumor. GOD. This is just like the time in kindergarten when she told me to say "X" a million times fast and I was DUPED into saying a DIRTY WORD ON ACCIDENT. ARGH.

Apparently there was NEVER a rule for when you find the star even when the company put out the sucker in 1931. Tootsie just wanted to mess with our heads by making a kid dressed as a chief shooting a boldly out-of-place star. WELL WHAT THE HELL, TOOTSIE? What. The. Hell.

Anyway, I have no end to this story but to say how vastly disappointed I am to finally learn the ultimate truth.

And to say this: "A one? A two-hooooo! Tha-ree. *crunch* Tha-ree."

Lost Drinking Game: Season 1 (*SPOILER ALERT*)

A few of my friends get together and watch Lost every Sunday. It started as an attempt to hang out with some friends who'd just had a baby. Well, it's been about a year and now that baby is walking, shaving, rolling his eyes at us (as children do) and we are officially about to start the 5th season. And in honor of that season and its time-transforming properties, I thought I'd post this: a list I'd made while we watched the very 1st season. This is accidentally my 3rd go around watching Lost (the 2nd time was for Joe) so at this point I've started to notice things a bit more acutely. Please forgive my cynicism. When the Monster and the Others wear off, you are left mostly with agitation.

Try to catch up. This game is sure to floor you every episode, so take small sips.


DRINK...

When Locke or anyone else says "Don't tell me what I can't do!"



Once for each flashback.



Any nickname given by Sawyer.



Every time Kate butts in.



Whenever Kate does the opposite of what Jack tells her.



Whenever Kate just generally gets on your nerves.



Whenever you hate Shannon even more than you hate Kate.



"Dude."



When Claire says "Okay?!"



When someone immediately decides the culprit.



When it turns out it wasn't that person.




Every time Arzt is--Whoops, nevermind. Bye, Arzt.



Whenever someone is irrational.



Whenever the bottom of Locke's foot is way too clean.



When Ethan's baby face--AHHHHH! IT'S ETHAN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!



Any time Jack risks his life even though he is the only doctor and therefore the only real chance at survival on the island.



Every time the women on the show are horrible and the men do everything important.



Whenever you get annoyed by that episode's feature character.



When someone has "daddy issues."








Whenever you wonder how someone got the item they have while on an island.



Any time you remember that if you make it through the season, you will be rewarded with Henry Gale.

Odd Jobs

Well. Someone from my high school posted the sonogram for their second child on Facebook. And because I am still not in the mood for booze (hurrr) after this weekend (hurrr) and thinking about alcohol makes me dry heave (hurrrr) but I still need to drown my sorrows, I've found the next best thing: licking the Hint of Lime off Tostidos tortilla chips. It's helping.

Here's the thing: I'm not ready for a second child. I am not ready for a first child. Like, AT ALL. In fact, lately I've been having some near mental-breakdown issues where I completely doubt everything about the life I'm living. Well, really it's more about my job.

Basically what happens in my brain is this:

Bah, this one part of my job is the worst.
Well this sucks, I don't even like doing this.
Wait, am I going to have to do what I don't like forever?
Wait, am I going to get laid off if I don't do a good job at this thing I don't like?
Wait, why am I doing a job that I'm going to get laid off from when I'm 40 and then can't find something because I've become totally obsolete and I'll be forced to fold socks at Walmart for the rest of my life?!?!?!?!?

And that's when, as Jan Levenson says, I collapse in on myself like a dying star.

Basically this:


These are the times that I start considering my options. And, as I see it, I have four potential other jobs that I would be willing to seriously consider.


1. Puppeteer


Ya'll know my blood runs Muppet. But honestly, I could see myself making a job out of entertaining on stage with a puppet, Muppet-brand or otherwise. There's something in me that just HAS to talk to inanimate objects (cabinet doors, boxes of dry pasta, running water...) and give voiceless things voices. Every pet and baby I've come in contact with in the past 10 years has had a voice. Each with their own personality and timbre. Taxi finished every sentence with "you know, and stuff." Charlie craved attention. Wally has a 1930's gangster voice. Regina is the first one to continuously threaten to kill me. I really think I could make a puppet show based on my pets. And no, I have never written a more depressing sentence.

I'm so serious about this one, I started legitimately looking into Puppetry schools. There's one in Connecticut. Puppet fantasies AND Gilmore Girl fantasies all wrapped into one? Be still my little beating heart.

2. Kindergarten Teacher


And I know this goes against what I just said about not being ready for kids, but Kindergarten teaching is different than owning and operating your own mini human. I'm pretty sure everyone I say this to has laughed in my face, little specks of spittle flying every which way. But I'm serious. I am really good with 5 year olds. BUT REALLY good. I used to nanny two boys and I MAY have learned the name, number, color, size, and wheel quality of all the Thomas the Tank Engine characters.

The most attractive part of being a Kindergarten teacher, though, is that I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite to being in Advertising. Instead of constantly trying to figure out how to weasel my products into the hearts and minds of people who could give a damn, I would be teaching children how to become better people. In fact, I wouldn't have to spend another single second pondering an ad. I could even try to IGNORE THEM. Also, I could wear vests with puffy paint on them. And who doesn't love the idea of that?


3. Junior High English Teacher


Honestly, I think I may be a glutton for punishment. But I really like the idea of this one. GONE are the days of kids who can't tell the difference between your and you're FOR I SHALL ATTACK THEM WITH THE NORTH if they ever forgot it.

Also, I remember my high school English classes as being one long string of teachers wailing "WHERE IS THE 'SO WHAT'?!" and we would wail back "WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU MEAN!" Do you guys remember that? Did ANYONE get it back then? I know Adrienne and I didn't, that's for damn sure. And it wasn't until I started reading books for pleasure again that I actually figured it out, all on my own. And I want to try and pass on that knowledge to the childrenz, before they even hit high school. Because yeah. I'm ambitious.

4. TV comedy writer.



This is my newest idea. It's an interesting one to me right now. It involves me getting to be raunchier and more authentic than I can be in Advertising, which I like. And I get to write long copy versus headlines, which I clearly like. And I could be funny. And successful. And write myself into a show with Future Husband John Krasinski, Amy Poehler and (what the hell) Aunt Meryl and Tom Hanks.


For now I'm sticking with Advertising. I mean, I DID almost sell an ad with a flying squirrel in it the other day, so the job does have its high points.